Category: General

It’s Sunday evening and I’m a bit all over the place. My wife and I took a Virgin Atlantic flight on Thursday night from New York and landed at Heathrow on Friday morning. It was a one-way trip.

Wait? What?

After nearly three and half amazing years in New York, I’m back in London. I’m excited to say I’m starting a great new job and will be joining a fantastic team as Head of Production at Google.

Writing that it I can’t help but think I’m about to get found out in the biggest way possible. We’ll see…..

I’m going to miss the team in New York and the city. I don’t have the superlatives to explain how fucking awesome it was (yes, I said awesome… I’m allowed). During my time there I worked on 60+ projects; some big, some small, some successful, some failures. I never thought I’d be given the opportunity to create a new brand for [one of] the biggest companies in the world. But I was. And we did. Along with a bunch of other amazing stuff.

“It also felt like a good moment to tidy up and hit reset on a bunch of stuff. Especially digital things like email, tags, folders and social. I ran FullContact on iCloud, Google, and LinkedIn to merge and de-dupe the data – and hit delete on the old shit. After that I killed Angel List, G+, Instagram, Product Hunt, Snapchat, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter, Vimeo, Vine, Youtube and more. From today @hellokinsella is dead. A new and shiny @kinsellaxyz is alive.”

But this isn’t about the work I did. It’s about the work I’m going to do. I’m super excited to be joining a team that is already knocking it out of the park. Here’s a snapshot:

In September 2015, the team worked on a project called Assembly of Youth, which used feature phones and SMS to bring the voices of children around the world directly to their representatives at the United Nations General Congress. It presented them to some of the world’s most influential people in a powerful display in the atrium of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

In response to the Syrian refugee crisis, the team worked alongside the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps to launch the Refugee Info Hub. Built and launched in just 36 hours, the portal brings valuable information to the thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria and making their way to Europe. Within four months of the Hub’s launch the platform had been used in 18 locations across Europe by more than 30 NGOs, and helped more than 100,000 refugees.

More recently Project Jacquard, which “makes it possible to weave touch and gesture interactivity into any textile using standard, industrial looms”, won the Cannes Product Design Grand Prix.

And this week they launch Project Bloks, “a research project aiming to create an open hardware platform to help developers, designers, and researchers build the next generation of tangible programming experiences for kids”.

It’s Sunday evening. I’m a bit all over the place after getting off a plane late last night – flying to New York to start a new job, tomorrow, at Google Creative Lab.

Yep. It feels strange to write that. I’ve talked about it before a little bit; but have only just found the breathing space to get something a bit more long-form down. As well as finishing a job I loved, I’ve also just got married, been on honeymoon, and am selling up and moving out of London. It’s been a crazy few weeks.

So, some history.

It’s only been 15-months since I joined Stinkdigital; I honestly loved being there and it stills holds a very special place in my heart. I was surrounded by a bunch of talented and fun people. I learnt loads. I made some mistakes. We did great work. We did it with a smile on our faces. I was slightly in awe at the quality of the place when I joined – I still am now.

So, why did I leave?

I’m a lover of creativity and technology; I’ve always thought Google is one of the most exciting and forward-thinking companies on the planet — and that Google Creative Lab is doing some of the most amazing, ambitious, and interesting work out there.

I could get all wordy about it, but you don’t pass up an opportunity like this.

I spent a bit of time with a few members of the team last week, taking about the work. They’re so switched on it’s unbelievable. It’s also exciting for me personally to be part of a team at Google that already includes some amazing people.

Iain wrote something when he joined that really struck a chord: “Everyone I’ve met who works at Google and Google Creative Lab feels like they’re part of a company that is both a great business AND can change the world for the better. I’m overjoyed to share their beliefs and look forward to joining them.”

That’s the feeling I got when I spent time there.

When I talked with Kevin about things he casually dropped in: “This place is a bit like the Butterfly Effect – everybody who joins has the opportunity to make a difference.”

I hope I can make a positive one.

So it’s been an absolute joy to be part of the unfolding Stinkdigital story; I loved every minute of it. And here’s to the a next adventure with Google. I’m excited by the future that lays ahead – and that’s all you can ask for, right?

We have a core of fulltime staff backed-up by a pool of trusted freelancers.

We run the business on Google Apps. (Gmail, Google Calendars, Google Docs)

We use Google Talk in the office and Skype for international calls.

We use shared docs and collaborative editing… a lot.

I haven’t opened MS Office since I started.

I have 2 regular meetings a week (one at Stinkdigital, one at Stink) and a call with NYC.

The meeting room is usually free.

The thing I’ve really noticed though is how fast things move. No I mean it…. really fast. It’s built into the DNA of the place. Part through necessity, part through planning. Obviously that brings it’s own subtle challenges; but on the whole it’s been really refreshing.

I’ve been meaning to write a proper post for a long time now as this poor old blog was starting to look horribly neglected.

Truth be told; when I first started blogging I used to take the time to craft each post, there was thought and detail put into it, and the writing was much more personal.

However, over time, it slowly became something more like to a “glorified Pinterest’ of cool stuff – mainly because my job changed. And that’s all fine; BUT the site was missing the thinking that went along with all that cool shit. It’s not that the thinking wasn’t there, I did it… but time was short, and I struggled to keep it short and make it coherent. So in the end I sacrificed it.

But, as those of you who follow me on Twitter may know, after 6½ years fabulous year at glue, I recently decided it was time for a change and resigned in October 2011.

I was going to post something a bit more longform then, but to be honest my head really wasn’t in the right place. And, whisper it, but I actually quite enjoyed switching off for a bit.

ALL CHANGE.

So it’s January 2012, and refreshed and re-invigorated I’ve joined the super talented team at Stinkdigital. I’ll probably talk about a few of the reasons in another post – but my focus has shifted a bit. I want to reflect that here too.

After 10 great years in Shoreditch – glue Isobar are moving to new offices near Regents Park. We’re moving into a brand new space with other Aegis Media agencies, such as Posterscope, iProspect, Carat, Vizeum, and more.